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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

Thank you for posting this, great news indeed!

I get my electricity from a rural coop (NOVEC) and they are honestly the best service, lowest price, efficient, innovative and treat the community so well.

It can be done!

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Flip side - I also get my power from a rural coop in the midwest, and the service is terrible. The price is high. We lose power at least once a week, but that's better than in the past when it was every other day. They have hard limits on what power generation we can do (size of solar panels and no battery backups) and even wade into the situation if you try to install a backup generator - which I understand they want a cut-off to keep from juicing the lines and killing someone, but they want to regulate how large and what kind of generator you can use on your own house.

I know this seems contrary, but I believe people need to understand that a coop isn't a magic bullet. It's a tool, one of many, that if used properly can be great. But if it's not, it's a real pain in the ass.

As a member of the CoOp, presumably you have far more control over making changes to the parts you don’t like…

Sounds like you're in a prime position to go off grid.

How long has NOVEC been around? Can you share anything about how they came to be?

Do they own the grid and wires and whatnot, or just the power? Are there other choices in your area?

Since the 1930s and yes they own the fiber

They do a good job explaining here:

https://www.novec.com/About_NOVEC/index.cfm

I have a similar experience here in MA. Our town owns the power company as a non-profit and we have amazing service. We never lose power unless someone crashes into a pole or something, and even then it's only out for a short amount of time. When we have a big winter storm and all the surrounding communities on the large providers tend to be dark for days or longer, whereas here any outages are fixed quickly. They actually go around and trim trees off the lines to prevent future outages.

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